The effect of non-uniformities in temperature on the performance parameters of an isolated cell photovoltaic module with a compound parabolic concentrator

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of non-uniformities in cell temperature on the open-circuit voltage, short-circuit current, maximum power output and fill factor of each cell in a PV module with 11 isolated cells placed in a compound parabolic concentrator (CPC). To achieve this objective, symmetric CPC and a photovoltaic (PV) module were designed and fabricated. The PV module with and without the CPC were both exposed to a constant solar illumination of 615 W/m2 continuous for 18 minutes. It was found that the temperature for the cells in the PV module without the CPC were almost constant while that with the CPC varied by 20%. Due to non-uniformities in cell temperature, the decrease in open-circuit voltage, maximum power output and fill factor was higher for cells with higher temperature than similar cells with lower temperature. However, the short-circuit current slightly increased with cell temperature.